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View Full Version : [Dixonary] Round 1630: GRECQUE results


Dodi Schultz
July 27th, 2005, 09:43 AM
Paul wrote,

>> The true definition (12) was a conflation of Chambers 9 and OED 2.

I didn't think that combining definitions from two different dictionaries
was permissible, since the rules specify that the source is to be "any
accepted dictionary"; that sounds singular to me.

>> The fret definition came from Chambers and the percolator from the
>> OED, apparently copied from Webster 1864 and marked ?US.

I happen to own a copy of the 1864 Webster (G & C Merriam). GRECQUE isn't
listed as a regular, accepted word. Rather, it's included in an appendix of
neologisms as a coined word for the "contrivance" in a coffee maker,
containing the grounds and having "minute perforations" in the bottom,
through which boiling water's poured; the word was also applied to the
coffeepot itself.

Whether GRECQUE ever made it into the dictionary proper, I've no idea.
There's no mention of it in M-W II (1934), and I don't have any volumes
from the years between.

--Dodi

Dave Cunningham
July 27th, 2005, 11:31 AM
Well -- it was the coffee-maker which got to me!

Dave

Paul Keating
July 27th, 2005, 11:47 AM
>
> What is WGmc?
>

West Germanic. As opposed to North Germanic (Scandinavian languages
and Frisian), and East Germanic (only Gothic, long since dead).

Paul Keating
July 27th, 2005, 11:48 AM
> and I don't have any volumes
> from the years between.

Nor do I, but the 1828 and 1913 editions are available in digital
form. There are links to them from the Coryphæus Yahoo group, which is
how I checked.